My Position: The pipeline
connection from the City of Canton Water System to the North
Canton Water Treatment Plant (WTP) is not complete and may not provide the quantity of water the City
of North Canton would need in an emergency.

The 24-inch pipeline connection to North Cantonís WTP is
incomplete:

Summer 2002

This photograph
shows two six-inch pipes protruding from the ground several
hundred yards to the north of the Water Treatment Plant. The
pipes (surrounded by orange barricade netting) mark the
temporary termination of the 24-inch pipeline that was
installed in the summer of 2002. A temporary hookup to the
Water Treatment Plant was fashioned using two six-inch fire
hoses. In a test late last summer, this temporary hookup
failed to provide the quantities of water that would be
needed in a North Canton water emergency.

Summer of 2003

Now with all the
construction going on at the Water Treatment Plant, there is
no way a temporary pipeline could be laid across this area.
The construction going on at the Water Treatment Plant has
left large excavated areas that block even the failed
temporary hookup that was attempted late last summer.

As of July, 2003, the pipeline has not been connected to the
WTP:

I know that myself and one
other councilmember had no idea that the pipeline would not
be connected to the WTP after the pipeline project was
completed. I did not discover this until approximately two
months after the pipeline construction was completed.

In the event that the City of
North Canton needs an emergency supply of water from Canton,
the cityís plan is to hook up two six-inch fire hoses over
the surface of the ground into the WTP to complete the
connection.

This emergency hookup will
have to be used until 2004.

Upon hearing of the plan to
use the fire hoses for an emergency hookup to Canton for
water, my first concern was that the two six-inch fire hoses
could not carry enough capacity to handle several millions
gallons of water a day.

I was not able to get a
definitive answer on the capacity of the fire hoses. But
more importantly, when I talked to the EPA regarding this
temporary connection, I was advised that the bigger problem
was with the introduction of air into the WTP when using the
fire hoses. The fire hoses were tested using this temporary
connection and were unable to transport enough water to
solve an emergency need for water. This is due to the fact
that the flow of water through the fire hoses had to be
reduced considerably to minimize the generation of air at
the time the water dumps into the clarifiers at the WTP.

The introduction of air into
water at the WTP resulted in air-locking the entire WTP and
required back flushing of the WTP filters every one or two
days. The normal schedule of back flushing the filters at
the WTP is about every four days.

Consequently, it appears that the pipeline connection to
Cantonís Water System will not provide a backup source of water
for the City of North Canton until a permanent underground
connection to the WTP is complete in 2004.